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Let's Keep Talking with Braxton Gilbert
Unlocking the Chains of Addiction with The Courtnologist
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This episode is a raw and intimate journey into the heart of addiction and the power of recovery. Courtney bravely shares her harrowing battle with opiate and meth addiction, we peel back the layers of this often misunderstood and stigmatized condition. We discuss the paradox of seeking comfort in the very thing that hurts us and the incredible transformation that unfolds through the recovery process.
Weaving personal narratives with insights from Khalil Rafati's "I Forgot to Die" and the scientific perspectives of Dr. Anna Lemke and Dr. Daniel Lieberman, this episode is steeped in both hope and pragmatism. You'll hear my own candid story of sex and pornography addiction, and how these experiences reshaped my world. Courtney's descent into the world of drugs following a seemingly harmless prescription opens up a dialogue about the fine line between use and dependency. And we don't shy away from the dark places, including the physical and emotional toll of withdrawal and the role fear plays in maintaining sobriety.
But this isn't just about the struggle; it's also a celebration of the human spirit. We explore the profound lessons learned from these battles, tackling the challenges of living in a world marked by excess and the therapeutic potential of psychedelics for healing trauma. Every story shared is a testament to resilience, and a reminder that even in the most challenging of times, connection, community, and self-discovery can pave the path to a brighter future.
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Journey Through Addiction and Recovery
Speaker 1Well, look, I really appreciate you accepting my invitation to join me on the podcast today. Like I said prior, this is a really low key conversation, just free flowing space, so I don't have rigid questions for you, but I just have a sincere curiosity about your journey and some of the gems that maybe we can circle around and talk about. People that listen to this podcast are people that are looking to experience life in a deeper way, a richer way, by going into our experience inside and asking ourselves the questions of why do we suffer and what causes the most pain. And addiction, in my opinion, is probably one of the greatest lessons or examples of the human condition. I don't know. Do you know a guy named Khalil Rafadi? He wrote this book called I Forgot to Die.
Speaker 2No, but now I'm going to get it, you're definitely going to get this book for sure.
Speaker 1This guy spent I don't know he was getting blackout drunk at like nine years old, got into just like party drugs, mdma and stuff when he was in his teens, early 20s, started smoking heroin, injecting heroin, then started using speedballs and pretty much spent 20 years, 25 years, in just a drug, fueled oblivion and got clean, opened up a couple rehab facilities in the West Coast, opened up this smoothie store called Sun Life Organics and has created like 17 businesses. At that point I found this at one of his bookstores in California and read it probably seven or eight times over the last eight years and I talked to him about two weeks ago and my interest in it is just. It's so interesting how we cling desperately to something that gives us a little bit of relief from our life and then it starts to take everything and then it swaps everything and it stops the terms on you big time.
Speaker 1Yeah in my own life. The addiction I've struggled with has been sex addiction and pornography addiction, and I've spent the last say probably a year and a half, maybe two years really facing a lot of the complex, difficult relationship that I have with sex and with pornography, being my earliest exposure to sex was through pornography, and it's been really interesting. I very much have wanted to spend a lot of time in conversations about addiction just to gain a lot of insight from my own journey and, of course, just to share space with wonderful people who are a role model for others. Maybe we could start off with letting people get to know Courtney a little bit and the story of getting involved with drugs and addiction and what that looked like.
Speaker 2Okay, I started experimenting very young, early teens and kind of like Khalil, you know it was ecstasy and little things. In high school, you know a little bit of cocaine, a little bit of this, a little bit of that. It wasn't until, like most people, when I was prescribed liquid Vicodin that I had been from an oral surgery. That kind of kicked off my opiate use. I did pills for many years. I snorted them. I have a deviated septum that impacts my breathing from snorting drugs and it wasn't until the winter of 2012 that heroin and meth became part of my life. And then, soon thereafter, I became an IV drug user and, again like Khalil, I began speedballing and that kind of became my issue.
Speaker 2My drug addiction journey has. The first half of it was oh, it couldn't happen to me, oh, it's not going to be me, I'm never going to do heroin, I'm never going to do cocaine, I'm never going to do needles, I'm never going to do these things. And I did every one of those things because you think that you're above it. You think that, oh, that can't happen to me, it happens to. That's kind of the end game for people that invite heroin and pills and meth and drugs into their life. Eventually it goes downhill, and that was no different for me.
Speaker 1When did you?
Speaker 2have the oral surgery 2006.
Speaker 1So prior to that it was all recreational drug use and then once.
Speaker 2Yeah, like drink on a weekend, smoke some weed, take some Xanax, something like that.
Speaker 2It wasn't continual use until I got prescribed liquid vicarin and then it was. Then I kind of understood why everyone around me was doing vicarin and what's strange about opiates and I don't know that and everybody would agree with me. But I feel like drugs in general, if you have insecurities or you have trauma or you have any of these things, there's this escapism that comes with these drugs where you can outrun your thought process and not dwell on reality and you can like pretend that you're in a whole different place or a whole different person and those drugs support that, that, that journey of escaping. And so then you, you know, I feel like you obviously chase the drugs because of withdrawal, but you also chase the drugs because of it makes. It allows you to stay in the space of bullshit, of things that are happening, or avoiding things that are happening, or avoiding who you've become, because the drugs just let you put a pause on that. The problems are there, but as long as you're high, you know, you can kind of outrun the reality. Yeah.
Speaker 1Whenever you were taking the prescriptions, you said that you kind of started to see why people were doing this. What was that? What was that moment where you're like, oh, I get it.
Speaker 2Well, because I had been around a group of people that were already abusing opiates and I remember being super judgmental about it and being like, oh, how's that Tylenol taste? You know, because everything Tylenol. I thought how ridiculous that they're snorting these pills and I and I wasn't going to do that. But when the liquid viking came in to play, I was like, oh man, like it.
Speaker 2I've even as a kid, I think I know that I've always kind of disliked who I was or felt like I was supposed to be some something different. You know what I mean, and I always had these really deeply rooted insecurity issues. And when I was on Vicodin or Perkiset, I, those issues were just not there and it was glorious. I thought, wow, so this is, this is what it could have been if I, you know, if I wasn't this way or if this didn't happen to me, this is how I could feel. And then you can you confuse it for being like an actual, like reality, like that's not who you are. You're on drugs and it's messing with your receptors and it's making you think something, but your heart thinks, oh, oh, this is it.
Speaker 2I don't sound the cheat code, man this is where I yeah and it's wow, yeah, it ends up really coming and bitch, smacking the reality into you that like it's, it's, it's drug abuse.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 1And then the relief from emotional pain and difficulty and being uncomfortable. It's really interesting, how really interesting how it gives you kind of what you're after and then it like starts to give it to you in less and less quality, less and less potency, and you forget why you started in the first place. You're just trying to re-achieve that level of potency that initially it gave you. I know that mine's been the same with sex and porn addiction more and more and more consumption, with less and less and less reward, more and more and more consumption. And then you like kind of it's not. Until you know, years and years later, when you start to kind of wake up from the haze, you go like what, what in the world was that? Like? I started stringing behaviors together to try to sustain this pursuit of a high that was ever elusive and it just started because it gave you this, this like oh, that's it. That's what I've been trying to feel right there.
Speaker 2Yep. And then when you try to make it worse, especially with the, with drugs, when you keep trying to chase something and then the pills aren't enough or you can't get the pills, so then it's heroin, and I mean it's just such a nightmare journey of avoiding, like, looking within, I feel like I didn't. I really just didn't think that recovery was in the cards for me.
Speaker 1Why not?
Speaker 2And I just didn't. I don't know. I just was really doom and gloom, felt like this was it, and I mean, this is just who I was and this was what happens to people like me.
Speaker 1I don't even know what, my, how I adopted those thought processes, but I believed it.
Speaker 2I thought, oh, you know, and I was around like minded people that struggled the same, that all had the same poor excuses.
Speaker 1Did you think like I'm not? This is the only way that I can achieve this feeling of like warmth and comfort that everyone else just has, naturally because of my doom and gloom scenario.
Speaker 2I think I was angry. I think that addiction goes hand in hand with lack of accountability. I think for for me anyway, where I was mad at things from my childhood, I was mad at people, I was mad for this and that and whatever but I never really like, as I used to really look at it, like I do these things because ABCD happened. Instead of being like ABCD happened but I chose drugs.
Speaker 1That's a really great way to reframe it, yeah.
Speaker 2Like I chose the drugs. Nobody made me choose the drugs. It was a symptom of something else but it wasn't until I kind of quit the blame game and started to look at my part and my problem that I was able to participate in like recovery because I was so mad for so long. And then again with with with drugs, especially with IV drug addiction. Iv drug addiction is soul shattering, it's something.
Speaker 1What do you mean? Can you talk about that with more texture and details?
Speaker 2Oh yes.
Speaker 1Because that was that started when. When was that was like 2014-ish.
Speaker 2Yes, it was right. Well, it was 2013, but it became daily use since 2014. And the needle, really, you know, you think you know rock bottom and then you learn there's basements and then there's basements to that part of rock bottom and the basement and there's more basements and I feel like I found them through IV drug use. Because IV drug use it's so different. Because when you withdraw I'm not discounting anyone's drug addiction by saying this I'm saying all obviously, pills, if you're eating them or snorting them, it's an awful withdrawal. Everyone's situation is different. But I'm saying that needle it's it's different. It's going directly into your bloodstream.
Speaker 2I was, I was shot into my neck and so the withdraws are so much different and it's so not about getting high Once you're on the needle. It's it's about getting well and about feeling baseline so you can even be around people and them not realize just how sick you are. I had no idea how desperate dope sickness could be, because with dope sickness you don't even fear death. You're going to pick stuff up off the floor hoping that it's dope and you're going to inject it into your body. That's wild. Well, you know I'm.
Speaker 1That's why, yeah, all right, yeah, I love this, I love this conversation already. I just want to get into the details of the nitty gritty here. The yeah, Like that, how quickly, did like how quickly it is it is that begin to change where you go. Like I'm getting high, I got liquid Vicodin, this shit kind of rocks, and then let's see that was 2006. Okay, so then we're kind of fucking around with that. Heroin enters a picture in 2012,. Right, and at that point are you still kind of going up or like we're still like damn, this shit kicks even harder. I'm feeling even better.
Speaker 2I never thought I would use heroin but I'm not sure how many people are familiar with like what happened in the state of West Virginia, West Virginia, over like a decade span, prescribed people in the state like 400% more than the national average combined of opiates, and then the pill mills got shut down and then you had to go to pain clinics. So like these people that had been prescribed for years of pain pills, I mean that everybody went to heroin and like the shift was clear in the state of West Virginia. West Virginia did West Virginia wrong and in the way of what they were prescribing, and how much more.
Speaker 1Was there a policy change? What was a policy change? Or something that changed the amount that they prescribed to everyone dropped to heroin, I think it was national.
Speaker 2Yeah, I think it was national, like you had to go to a pain clinic.
Speaker 1Gotcha.
Speaker 2So now regular doctors can just go in and go to a ER. Or I mean, you could go to an ER, but you couldn't go to like a regular doctor and get pain pills. They're going to send you to a pain clinic.
Speaker 1Gotcha.
Speaker 2And then they're going to get off the opiate addiction.
Speaker 1But so many people was already on at that point.
Speaker 2Yeah, and you know good people teachers, regular people, people that don't have a shit show past. You know regular people. It happened to so many good people and then they end up on heroin because of how, like a way to remedy their pain.
Speaker 1It's so weird about addiction and like I speak from my experience with sex addiction, with porn addiction you know the conversations I have with other people who are in recovery is really interesting, even in, you know, with, like my conversation with Khalil.
Speaker 1What's really wild to me is how quickly you lose perspective on why you feel, just how bad you feel Because, like you're not like with porn addiction or sex addiction and I'm not trying to change the conversation to that, I'm just saying that's the only way I can relate from Like it's, like it's you're not nothing feels great, nothing feels good. Nothing is like hitting the spot that you like. Oh, that's what I've been after. It's just it's this ever shrinking reward, but it's the only. For some reason, it's the only one you can think about. And so, even though it's like getting less and less rewarding, and you're in and you're and if you just took a pulse check, you're in such a bad situation and you're feeling like shit and you it's like psychologically you're anxious or stressed and like you're kind of falling apart, but the only thing you can think about to relieve your situation is your drug of choice.
Speaker 2Absolutely.
Speaker 2That's such a weird thing, and it's, and it's awful because people will say, how can you not pull your shit together for your kids, or how can you do this and put your mom through this? And it's like, okay, so the withdrawal, the withdrawal takes over all your perspectives, because your main, your main focus is to avoid being doptic, is to avoid going without, because it is such a physical and mental, oh, it's such a nightmare. Like I feel very blessed in the way that you know. I tried and failed with getting into recovery several different times but when it finally stuck, I became so scared of drugs I mean I won't even take Benadryl Like I'm just scared of everything now Because I wasn't scared for so long I had no fear with using. But people are often like, oh, I can't believe you could do that to your kids or to your family, and it's like believe it.
Speaker 1Believe it.
Speaker 2Believe it, it's still not about oh, I'm choosing drugs over that person. It's. Your brain is all consumed with avoiding the withdrawal.
Speaker 1And it's like such a addiction. Is this weird parasitic thing that you know, if you're like you had another reason for being on earth, like there was another, like you were born so that you could something like insert what you find your soul's purpose is music. You know, being a mother opening a business, writing a book, you know discovering something, like there was a point for you being here and then it just got like just hijacked by this thing and then there you are just pushing this button over and over and giving all of your soul to it. It's fucking wild.
Speaker 2I have very bit of it and it's funny that that you say that, because I, when I got into recovery the first four years, you know it was like a journey. And then I felt like, man, I just don't want to be just that girl that got off dope, like I don't want to just be that girl, you know. So now, now I'm in college again. Third time is the charm. Because I thought, man, I just, you know, it's like nice when you first get into recovery. Oh, cool, I got, you know this is great. But then you're like now what I'm only the person.
Speaker 2Yeah, now what? So I started sharing my to backup a little bit. I am a longtime blogger and journal keeper. My grandma got me a diary when I was like in fourth grade, so I've always just I've always liked to write or share or whatever. So when cell phones got the video capabilities to video, I started doing private video journals. That's where all that footage I have of me using came from. That wasn't stuff I was posting, that was from private video journals.
Speaker 1I was kind of wondering what they were like, how you felt so inspired to grab your your video camera. I was isolated.
Speaker 2I was so isolated and I kind of figured that there's a couple of videos that, like I obviously have, we'll never share. But one of them you know it's it clearly states like I believed I was going to die, I believe my drug addiction was going to kill me and all that was going to be left was going to be these, these video journals, which is awful when you think about what I was leaving behind.
Speaker 1For yeah, you're like hey, check this out, here's your mom.
Speaker 2Yeah, but I, I was alone. It was just me and Mu and my other dog.
Speaker 1And I was alone a lot of the time in the bathroom.
Speaker 2So much. So it wasn't until four years into my recovery that I started to watch those, because I couldn't stomach it.
Speaker 2I couldn't, I couldn't see it, and when I started to watch them, four years in I was like, oh man, and then tiktok had some like recovery challenge thing, like some hashtag recovery challenge, and I participated in it. And then when I realized how big the recovery community is online, I felt like obligated to share. Yeah, because I don't remember feeling like I had a chance and how, when I was stuck in that struggle, yeah and there wasn't a lot of it online.
Speaker 2Like there is now. Now you can find inspiration all over the place, but back in 2017, I don't remember there. I mean, maybe I wasn't seeking it out either, but it wasn't like part of my algorithm.
Speaker 1Yeah, Of course. What was it like like? What was it like in the bathroom with and with the syringe, just chasing darkness all the time for two years?
Speaker 2I would get into these deep psychosis, clearly from the videos I could complete again with these drugs, with these IV drugs, and I was speedball and I was mixing either cocaine and heroin or meth and heroin together and it would give me, you know, hours and days of just I'm in a whole different reality that nobody else is in no, but no one else, it's just me.
Speaker 2And so all this time would go by, like these years would go by, and it would feel like so fast, but to my loved ones it was, you know. So long. Yeah, it was a nightmare, you know, and then I ended up moving out West in the summer of 2017, hoping for, like, this new reset, this whole new life I was promised. This guy gave me a job and it was going to be all these great things.
Speaker 1What year is this?
Speaker 22017, the summer of 2017.
Speaker 2So I went out West and, you know, trusted, this guy moved, moved out there, we were going to, I was starting over, and then, lo and behold, he was also heroin addict. But it was weird because, you know, I had never known what a narcissistic sociopath was you hear the words. I never had experienced anything like somebody like that and he was like so good and so nice and so helpful. And then one day he just kind of snapped and the pills, because he was a pill addict. But the heroin came out, the abuse came out, the violence came out and it was like I tell people a lot, the trauma led me out of my addiction because he was so he since passed away from drugs, but he was so mean and he was so abusive and he would be so violent towards me and if I would fight back he would threaten to hurt Moo. Moo took a chunk out of this man's arm back in 2017.
Speaker 2And I mean it's just, it was such a nightmare out there but I felt like if I didn't get and I hate to say it like this I'm not ever going to make light of domestic violence and I don't often share about my experiences with it, but I feel like I got beat into submission for recovery in so many ways I felt like, okay, this is it, I'm done. We're done here, I'm done with this. My brother had just passed away. All he ever asked of me was to get my shit together. This guy's beaten my ass. My dog's traumatized. I'm over at the other side of this country. I'm out there with not a hope in the world. So when I finally surrendered to move to Florida and get into recovery, I think it was the first time I really meant it. I went through the motions before with psych wards or rehabs and going to jail and going to prison.
Speaker 1What was different, Like why was it this time? Had you finally dug deep enough to realize that was only going to keep going deeper and there was no nirvana down there?
Speaker 2I had enough. It was so bizarre to go through the psychological obstacle course of that relationship because I had never been, I had never experienced somebody so crafty. He was just so good at the manipulation. I really thought I was moving out there for a fresh start. I really thought that it was going to be all these great things. And then it was an absolute nightmare. But without that nightmare it wouldn't have shook me the way I needed to apparently be shook to surrender to recovery. I found that last basement of rock bottom in Oregon.
Speaker 1For a while were you chasing better, like higher and more intense and harder drugs. The experience was about chasing that dragon. For a bit Was it kind of the optimistic like I'm going to get even higher and it's going to be even better.
Speaker 2For several months before I went to Oregon I thought people were ripping me off. I went to my family doctor and he ran blood work and he told me he wasn't entirely too sure how I was sitting across from him. The only way he could explain it, from the amount of fentanyl that was in my system, was that I don't metabolize it. My body doesn't metabolize it the same and I should be so grateful. I remember being pissed because what I can't do a little bit and get high, I have to do a half gram shot. I was angry and looking back I mean he was right, I was blessed. My not metabolizing fentanyl is probably the only reason I'm here.
Speaker 1Just because you couldn't get high off fentanyl.
Speaker 2Not like everybody else could, so I thought people were ripping me off.
Speaker 1I got mad and went to my doctor and said am I getting real?
Speaker 2My doctor was like listen. Then I found what they I mean I can't verify if it was really car fentanyl. I've had people tell me that there's no way that I was injecting real car fentanyl, which I don't know if you're familiar with it, but it's like elephant tranquilizer. It's like 10,000 times stronger than morphine. But it was told to me that it was car fentanyl. They called it China white back then and it was very, very strong. And that was definitely me chasing as high as I could get.
Speaker 1That's where we locked the self in the bathroom and went to work.
Speaker 2That's when it started. And I mean, man, some of those videos, I'm just in a whole different reality. It's crazy to look back at it now because I'm like, hmm, that drugs are bad. I mean they're bad man.
Speaker 1They're bad, I mean, I don't know. Like most, a lot of people don't ever use drugs. Some people get really fucked up with drugs. But I mean I've had wonderful drug experiences throughout my life and I've had like, but I know how insanely it's hard to understand how reality is. Reality works when you haven't done drugs. It's hard to understand the perception of your reality and that your personality or what you're pushing back out into reality is the thing that survives in that domain of what your brain's projecting around you. And so, like I totally get it when you're I totally, I get it a little bit what you're talking about when you say, like dude, I am living in a totally different dimension in that bathroom.
Speaker 2Also, I do feel like I and people you know people we all can feel how we want to feel, but I classify certain things as drugs and I classify other things as not drugs and people, and I think that's how I kind of collected the kind of a following that I have is because I utilize cannabis recovery to get and stay into recovery. I know that anything can become a drug. I also look at things like micro dosing and things that people do on a more natural side as being I'd rather see somebody go on a micro dose journey than go get on San X.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2You know what I mean. Like I feel like there's different levels of things. I don't think there's such thing as healing heroin or some method that helps you Healing heroin. Yeah, there's no, I don't think any of those things exist, but I think that cannabis, used in the right way, can really be helpful, and I think the same with certain psychedelics can also be used in a way to really get through some of that, because you really collect some trauma on those journeys with those drugs.
Speaker 1Have you, have you gone through some different medicine experiences to begin to change and heal from the trauma?
Speaker 2I started micro dosing in 2021.
Speaker 1Micro dosing what?
Speaker 2Mushrooms.
Speaker 1Mushrooms.
Speaker 2Um, then I took it down to nano dosing, which is next to nothing, and currently I only take a nano dose maybe once a month, which is really just it. It really it's funny because you know, people used to suggest it to me. I lived in Denver in 2019 and people were like, oh, you should micro dose. I'm like you're offering me drugs, like you know who you're talking to. I don't want to do this.
Speaker 2Look at this video, yeah, and then I moved to Florida and I I joined a mom's group, which is really uncharacteristic of me. To how am I going to make friends? I have a kid, How's he going to make friends? And the girl that ran the group was a micro dose coach and I thought okay, so this is. You know, maybe this is the universe telling me to give it a shot. Um, there's a reason. They're magic. I don't like psychedelic experiences at all. It's not really. Yeah, not for me.
Speaker 2Not long ones, I mean in my past. I've definitely had some DMT experiences that were worth it. Worth it for sure. Reset worth it. We'll never say a bad thing about TMT.
Speaker 1After recovery, like after 2018, then DMT had the experiences.
Speaker 2Yeah, and it's crazy that it's just like sometimes once is really enough. It really gives you a different type of reset. And when I started doing like the research on like dimethyltryptamine, like what it does with your pineal gland, it's like all these things are so helpful, but to someone again who's never done drugs, they're like oh, she's not in recovery, she's promoting DMT and it's like cool, If you don't know about that, then you should go find out about it.
Speaker 1I want to toss it. I want to toss an operating definition into this conversation. You know who Dr Andrew Huberman is.
Speaker 2I don't.
Speaker 1Okay, he is the professor of neuroscience at Stanford University. He has, I think, I think I think he has the most popular podcast ever in the world, something like that. If not, it's definitely Numbro Uno everywhere in terms of mental health and psychology and stuff. Anyways, he, when talking about addiction, defines addiction as an narrowing, an increasing narrowing of the things that give you dopamine. And so I think when people were like, well, that bitch ain't in recovery because she's smoking DMT or she's smoking weed or she did magic mushrooms or whatever like, if those things, those things are very low for abuse we could talk about, we might be a little bit more controversial in that statement.
Speaker 1But magic mushrooms, any type of psychedelics are like almost anti-addictive in the sense that they do not engage the reward pathway of the brain. They're somewhat challenging. A lot of people don't even like them, but they can be really informative, healing and the experience itself can do a lot of good. So I think that's a helpful thing to have in your back pocket. When someone says some bullshit like that, absolutely Like hey, dude, this is not like. This makes me enjoy. This makes me be able to receive dopamine and reward from more things in my life, because now I've valued time at the park with a friend, or I value a book, or I value doing my hobbies more, because I've been reminded of how valuable life is and how short this experience is.
Speaker 2So that and I started taking she-legy. Are you familiar with she-legy?
Speaker 1No she-legy.
Speaker 2Or she-legy I don't know how it's really said She-legy, that's what I call it because it sounds weird. I only started about a month ago because I stopped consuming cannabis. I stopped smoking a long time ago because I in 2019 I was diagnosed with emphysema and COPD from being front and center for manufacturing meth during the 2013, 2014 years.
Speaker 1It's my lungs trash. Were you making it.
Speaker 2I was. I was right there. Yeah, I was definitely a helper elf in that situation. I got in trouble for that as well and did just a tiny bit of time because I only got convicted of maintaining a dwelling because my name was on the house. So I got hit with a year, did six months very lucky Tooians very deep in. Yet another stop was without impact. I was supposed to be drowned and try to be there without.
Speaker 1Oh yeah how'd you survive in prison? I?
Speaker 2Was. It wasn't prison, it was jail and it was West Virginia and I just like looked the part. But I mean like really addicts in there, so it wasn't like a tough go but how'd you get?
Speaker 1did you get drugs?
Speaker 2How did I? What do you mean?
Speaker 1like in jail you got drugs.
Speaker 2In jail I chose drugs a couple times. Nobody drugged me.
Speaker 1No, no, I mean like you went to jail. What year was it?
Speaker 22015, when I did my six months to.
Speaker 1Gotcha 2015. So I mean, we're doing heroin, a meth at this point.
Speaker 2Oh yeah.
Speaker 1So when you went to prison, I'm saying like, were you like, fuck, I don't have any drugs, or was it easy?
Speaker 2Had had they have hit me with a year in a day. I would have went to prison but I had to stay in County. So I got hit with a year in County. I only did six months but when I got there I was so sick on the floor with like a mat like you would have in like elementary school, like PE. It was awful and Match me being dope sick with an issue with one of the other ladies there. We got into a physical altercation and I mean it just kind of set the tone. Nobody really bothered me. It wasn't like I was like Billy badass or anything but like.
Speaker 2I got that one fight. When I was dope sick, when I first got there, I was smooth sailing, so that's where you were able to get drugs while you were in jail.
Speaker 1Oh yeah, Gotcha. So you were able to continue the addiction in jail.
Speaker 2Not as consistent in my addiction was worse. When I got out, I didn't even think it was possible. I thought all this is good, because when you're in jail or in prison, everyone has the same mindset. When I get out, and doing it right when I get out, I'm not doing this, or?
Speaker 1that yeah.
Speaker 2Bullshit. I had to leave the whole state, like the whole area, and stay in Florida because if I would have went back to West Virginia, you know you have too much access. I think people underestimate the value of leaving the scene of the crime. Some people think that it's running away. Call what you want, save my life because I can go to wall.
Speaker 1Call it what you want, man, I'm good.
Speaker 2Whatever I go to Walmart or go somewhere, nobody knows me, nobody's like oh. I used to use with her or I seen her this place or yeah. Nobody gives a shit about me walking through Walmart If I was in West Virginia, I would run into my past all the time you know and then you feel compassion for people that are still stuck in it and you'd go around them and I'm a people, places and things person. It's the law for me I don't go around people, places or things I mean. I don't really go anywhere.
Speaker 1I know. I saw a video on your instagram. You said this is my first time. I've been out of the house all day. This is.
Speaker 2I don't go places at all. Um, I'm a homeschool mom, so I we belong to a co-op here, so like we do stuff every Wednesday and I might, go grocery shopping, but I don't go anywhere.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2I think I was. I think I ran the streets long enough to understand there's really no value in it for me anymore so now, what has?
Speaker 1now that you've gained a lot of distance from that confusing world of addiction? Now, what is coming up for Courtney, as like, what's this life about for you? What's what is this journey about for you? What's your purpose?
Speaker 2Well, I think that now you know it's funny. You wipe your nose, you feel guilty, like.
Speaker 1Like I promise you start the interview, like I said, I could not do it for six years and I did it. I did not do it for six years.
Speaker 2Um, for me I feel like I got a second chance with my family and I know that that's not the case for everybody, but I'm like super hyper focused on my family and my. In my kids I have price who lives with me, and my daughter still lives in west virginia with her dad, but she's about to graduate High school in may, so hopefully she's down here. Whatever she wants to do like, I'll support it. But my life now is primarily geared towards Correcting things like I screwed school up twice In my active addiction years. I went, you know, and looking back, I feel like I went because I just wanted to get like the money Because, and then I just would screw it off. So it took me a long time to be able to get all the pieces and parts together to where I could go back to college.
Speaker 2So I've been in college since January, currently have an a and everything I'm doing so far. I'm going for my bachelor's in accounting because, you know, I never figured out how to manage money and I want to eventually have um nonprofits and, you know, because I just don't think that there's enough said about people that have animals that want to go into rehab but won't because they have nowhere to trust their dogs. I don't think there's a big enough network of people that would help, because some people like I'm one of those people that avoided rehab because I Didn't want, I didn't have anywhere for my dog to be, which I know to some people would sound crazy. But when that becomes your only thing, like your only source of like, continual like, love and support, it's like an animal.
Speaker 1Yeah, a recovery animal.
Speaker 2I feel like I'd like to eventually Run some type of nonprofit that helps people to be able to go into rehab and keep their animals safe.
Speaker 1Hmm, that's super cool.
Speaker 2Yeah, like to do that.
Speaker 1When you talk about your family, it makes me think about um. Earlier you said, people look at you and think like how could she do that? And? And instead of being her family, how could she be that? Do that instead of being home with her family or coming out of the bathroom? How could she, how could you do that? You know, um, but the way that your brain's working at that time is so chained down, and there's one particular video that, sorry, my screen on my computer keeps going black, so I just keep having to reach in and reset it. There's a particular video where you're talking about like I'd rather die than get sick.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 1What is that? What's that feel like when sickness is coming on?
Speaker 2That was that video. I know what you're talking about because that was one of the lowest points in my drug addiction. I had tried to stop using and I'm like apologizing to my daughter and apologizing because I just I couldn't do it. I was coming off of what I what car fentanyl or something stronger than fentanyl, whatever it actually was. We didn't test drugs back then, which is crazy.
Speaker 1We didn't inject them. We tested them with our bodies. Yeah, it was a no testing kit for that.
Speaker 2Two thumbs up for this one, but for me it was like an apology video because I was done, I was going back to using because I just couldn't do. I couldn't do the sickness. It feels like you're on, like icy fire, I don't know how to explain it. The body agony that from dope withdrawal is crazy and I and because I had to stack them, I was coming off a coke, meth, heroin, whatever all together because I was speedballing and it was just such a it was.
Speaker 2It was an actual nightmare and all you can focus on is the hurt or remedying the hurt.
Speaker 1You know so you can't just try and feel better. I can just feel better if I just did a little bit.
Speaker 2It's desperation at its most profound. For me and my experience, I don't miss dope sickness at all and what's weird is if I get a little bit sick at all, my brain still associates it with being dope sick, even though it is not that like. I had COVID. A couple of years ago I went to a new kids on the block concert and I got COVID there and I remember comparing it the whole time like, well, it's not as bad as dope sickness, it's not as bad as dope sickness, but it still it still felt like so similar.
Speaker 2So any ailment that even mimics dope sickness I still my brain's like it's clearly not that, but it still registers that way in my mind for some reason. And I'm six years in and it still does that.
Speaker 1Yeah, um, one way that Khalil described smoking crack in his book. Afterwards he said after he said he smoked crack for the first time on accident that's a funny story. But um in, uh, yeah, he tripped and fell into a crack pipe. My friend, I'm sorry. And then the next morning he said you know, he spent, you know, the next nine hours just smoking all this crack with these, with these guys. And then he was on his way home and he just, he like talked about the way that he felt was absolutely mis, just like like he had lost two family members in the same day, like that.
Speaker 2And that's what.
Speaker 1I'll. That's the crazy. That's what's crazy. You smoked crack.
Speaker 2Oh my God, yeah, cracks, so bad. Whitney was right, crack is wack. It's awful because what I've learned in my drug experience is that as fast as it was.
Speaker 1It was a Whitney Houston who smoked. Crack Whitney Houston, whitney and Bobby. For sure Is that Houston, though, yeah, Whitney Houston and she.
Speaker 2there's an interview with her. I think I guess she said crack is wack.
Speaker 1She's right Huh.
Speaker 2She's very right, because what I've learned in my experience with drugs is if it's a fast onset, it's a faster withdrawal and cracks fast and so once it wears off, it's you know impending doom. Same with same with IV drugs. When it wears off, it's, it's intense, whereas like some some drugs, like in the beginning of my drug use, you know you could eat a vikenin or something and eventually it hits and then it fades away.
Speaker 2Yeah, you know, and then you start to snort them and it hits a little faster and it fades away and then it, you know, heroin boom, but as soon as it's out of your system, I mean you feel tanked you feel, yeah, it's the same with crack Crack's awful.
Speaker 1It's so wild that your brain you can chemically, um, fuck with your brain. I was searching for the best word there, Just fuck comes up. You could chemically fuck with your brain to to recreate the psychological setting that you would be in and the worst situation you could ever experience. Oh, yeah, Ever. And that's because you found that button or behavior or drug that that sprung it up for you and you just fucking mad, just absolute the most you could abused it. And and do you know, uh, do you know who Anna Lemke is?
Speaker 2There's a book, Dopamine Nation, that she writes, but I have heard of Dopamine Nation, but I've not read it.
Speaker 1There's a, yeah, Anna Lemke. She's um, she's also at Stanford University and she's the head of their uh, their addiction clinic and is, I guess she's a. She's a psychiatrist too. Anyways, she talks a lot about one of the most important findings in neuroscience and psychiatry in the last 50 years is that pain and pleasure are co-located. They're the they're not two ends of a spectrum that are diametrically opposed. They're the same lever that bends to one way or the other, and she describes it as the homeostasis process.
Speaker 1This is really interesting, I think, is that you're like, if I tilt this lever to the side of pleasure, oh, that feels good, it doesn't.
Speaker 1Your body wants to have homeostasis, so it doesn't just go back to center, but it tilts in the opposite direction to pain, and then back to center, so just like kicking a seesaw, yeah.
Speaker 1And so what she she talks about is that when you find something that feels good and you do it, it's really important that you allow your body to tilt to pleasure when it feels good and then you release and allow yourself to feel a little bit down because you rode the ride, you know, and it's okay that after eating one slice of cake, you kind of feel sad that you want another slice of cake. But that's okay, that's just how it's supposed to go. And then, if you let that ride, you go back to baseline and she says that you know, if you, if, when you let go of that pleasure side and you start to feel it tip towards pain, if you instead grab the pleasure again and try to drive it down, then essentially you accrue the neuro modulators in your brain, like cortisol I guess, I guess neuroepronaph or something there's a whole host of them that she talks about that essentially weight your scale to the side of pain Makes it worse. That just, yeah, just build up and build up, and build up and build up. And then you're sitting there just like trying to get some relief from the pain you've created from your abuse.
Speaker 2That actually makes a whole lot of scientific sense.
Speaker 1And then it's, then you're. That's kind of, I think, a good illustration to what we were talking about a little bit earlier, of why, in the depth and the darkness of the confusion of addiction, you just keep beating the same fucking reward, even though it's given less and less and less, because you feel like you've accrued. Like think about how amazing you felt on those drugs, courtney, and then just think about the fact that psychologically, neurochemically, your brain had to tip the other side and you borrowed some. Yeah, it did. You borrowed some pleasure and then you didn't pay back the debt. And then you borrowed some pleasure and then pay it back, the debt, and then eventually you know you it's fuck, it's there and you got to. You have to go through it. Oh, yeah.
Speaker 1And that's probably the recovery process.
Speaker 2Oh yeah, the recovery process is definitely bizarre. It's super bizarre. The first year is really tough, but I think that's the same with, like any, any addiction. But had I not have gotten pregnant for my son, I don't know that I would have stayed in recovery.
Speaker 1It's hard to tell, you know I got like maybe the first year or two out of recovery.
Speaker 2I got pregnant like she's like two weeks into recovery.
Speaker 1You were sober and you're like, let's do it, let's make another one.
Speaker 2My current daughter's. My current daughter, my kids have one dad.
Speaker 1My current dad.
Speaker 2And he, he had brought my daughter down to Florida to kind of see me, to be like mom's in recovery, like let's go. It was kind of like thanks bud. And then got pregnant, like we're, we're friendly, but you know we're not, we're not together, but we're good, we're a unit of some kind. Um. But so I got pregnant. Like two weeks I thought, for some reason I really felt that I, that I wouldn't, and my grandmother, she's just the best, she.
Speaker 2She called me because she knew that I was considering termination, because I was you know, I mean, I'm fresh off of her incredible trauma with violence, and then my IV, drug addiction and all these different things, and I had, you know, two weeks into recovery pretty much and and she called me and she said I don't want you to make a decision that you're going to regret. Do you think that you can be a good mom? And I was crying and I was like, yeah, and I don't know why. And she was like then that's all you need to know. And you need to do this and don't let anybody tell you what you need to do, cause a lot of people were very vocal. You shouldn't do this. What business do you have? Bring you know. And and they weren't wrong, considering my history, but you know I was tossing around the idea of you know, not putting another kid kid through it and counting myself out. So if my grandma wouldn't have called me and been like, listen, you got to listen to you, don't listen to anybody else.
Speaker 2If this is something that you want to see through, then you need to do that and that's what I did and I think it saved. I think that my daughter losing my brother, new having my family, there's all these factors that really like built up what I needed to have, like a recovery toolbox or whatever, but getting pregnant was like the anchor, because then it was, it was that. That. That was it. You know, cause my daughter. She was really young, she was like six when I started like heavy drug use and when I got pregnant for a brother, she was very clear, Like he doesn't need to know anything about any of this, you know, and you just need to give him everything that you got and and I have and so I mean really for me, family and loss and trauma all of it tumbled into me being able to recover somehow. I feel very lucky yeah.
Speaker 1You are very lucky, Courtney.
Speaker 2Yeah, I really feel very, very lucky because I have a lot of friends who didn't make it, oh God.
Speaker 1Sorry to hear that. Yeah, what, what advice do you have for somebody who's struggling with addiction of any kind?
Speaker 2Don't listen to themselves. Your mind lies to you. Your mind lies Looking back and I know it's cliche, but God, I could have listened to the people that that loved me, because listening to yourself clearly, someone that doesn't love you Like clearly I didn't love myself. When I was listening to my own narrative, like, oh, this is just who I am, this is all.
Journey of Self-Improvement and Recovery
Speaker 2I'm ever going to be. Or I deserve this, or they'll be better off without me. I wish that I would have just listened to the ones that loved me more than I did, because they were trying to lead me out and I was just putting up roadblocks every step of the way. If I would have just listened to people that loved me instead of listening to myself, because I feel like your mind lies to you in in addiction. It doesn't really allow you. It's like. It's like a really bad relationship, another relationship that isolates you from everything. That's that's good. And if I would have just listened. And then there's a method that I've adopted over the years and I tell people about too that if you can't do it for yourself, people say, oh, you have to get into recovery for yourself, you have to get sober for yourself. That's bullshit, it's absolute bullshit. You don't do it for yourself at first. It becomes about you eventually.
Speaker 2But I did it for different reasons. For my brother that passed, I couldn't apologize to him in person, so my recovery was like a my way of apologizing every day to him. I did it for my daughter, you know. But there's a method where you can just get out a piece of paper and you write down the advice that you would give your kid, or you give your best friend, or give your mom, or give whoever is important in your life. If they're in your exact same situation, they feel the exact same ways that you do about themselves, about life. You write down the advice you'd give them and then force yourself to take it because, if you wouldn't take your own advice, why would they?
Speaker 2So I would you know. So there's like different mind, like retraining your brain, little things that I've done along the way, but I definitely think that that's a good one.
Speaker 1Let me plug my computer in real quick. Okay, I Um one. One question I have is how Do you still feel Impulses to use?
Speaker 2no, I don't know how I got this lucky like I feel so Heartbroken for people because I remember what that feels like the yank Towards wanting to use. I developed a fear I'm just scared of of it all because I'm not entirely too sure how I made it Like I'm very grateful.
Speaker 1I'm done. I'm not even gonna go back in there and look, I Don't see the game tape.
Speaker 2Grateful that that I made it and and also I'm afraid to lose. I mean it takes a lot to get into recovery and to stay there. Um, but I'm so. I'm just scared To throw it away.
Speaker 2I don't feel, and truthfully I feel like I learned everything that drug addiction was gonna teach me and I'm alive to even be able to talk about it. So I don't see any real value and even having the yank but I'm grateful that I don't know how I stayed in West Virginia. I would always have been one bad mood away from a relapse, a very accessible relapse I had to complete just because the accessibility yeah you know.
Speaker 2So I don't, I don't have that in Florida. You know, it's very much just me and my family and my, my little, my few little friends, my little bubble.
Speaker 1Your mom group my mom group.
Speaker 2Yeah, it's so funny because they're these very, they're, they're very, they're good women and I don't think any of them really know what a shit I'm. Just, you know, I don't know that they know Some of them do and they're very, very supportive. But I mean, I've somehow became like the, the home school mom that goes to school. You know that doesn't do much, but watch like Big Bang Theory or something Like I've. I've a very simple existence and I like that. I like it.
Speaker 1I.
Speaker 2I.
Speaker 1One thing, that one thing that I thought was interesting when I talked with Khalil about his drug addiction was, he explained, he called heroin the Lord of Darkness and the Lord of Darkness, yeah, and and he Explains in a very, he explains his experience in a very spiritual framework of light and darkness, and that all of the drugs were.
Speaker 1You know, I also would split the hair and say there's some drugs that wouldn't necessarily consider drugs, of abuse, medicine, for instance, you know. But but those drugs were darkness, but the sinister aspect of them was they per, they masqueraded as light.
Speaker 2Yeah, I, I can see that because I don't know that I Sounds weird, but I wasn't a big fan of myself even before drugs. I was never. I just wasn't. But after drugs and I don't know if it was just being grateful and having gratitude or whatever it was but I learned how to like myself after the drugs Because of that. It's. It's weird how much that darkness can teach you. It's. It's bizarre.
Speaker 1I also what did it teach you?
Speaker 2Wow, so that's a lot. I feel like it brings me to like a quote that I heard in a rehab. I had a little short left against medical advice visit at a rehab little tour a couple years ago Well, couple back when I was still using and the guy said what you give the power to feed you, you give the power to starve you, and I felt like that really encapsulated my whole drug problem and I learned that that was very true and you know, I think that drugs, drugs really taught me. It taught me gratitude, because I was lacking that, taught me accountability and I was lacking that.
Speaker 2My drug addiction definitely refined who I am today and I and it's it's crazy that it took a you know I have you drug addiction and some trauma to Put me on a level playing field with myself, because it was just me against me for so long. And then you know you got a fit at some point. You have to figure out how to like have your own back, pat your own self. Yeah, I think that I learned that throughout the the process.
Speaker 1You might, like you might say what I learned from my drug addiction was those drugs are bad, but but then, but then, like I would imagine there's ways that, like you're saying, like some of the kind of building and stuff that the whole experience Taught you, like everything's connected to everything, yeah, sort of framework, like this whole experience taught me so much, like what are some of the lessons that are Are, that are you would see in your life every day now that you learned from your experience with drug abuse?
Speaker 2I learned that guilt is the world's most crushing emotion and guilt perpetuates drug use. Well, for me, guilt kept me continuing to use. It was guilt, guilt, guilt. I learned in my recovery from that that the only way to remedy the guilt was to stay in recovery and and that beating yourself up is counterproductive, because, looking back, that's all it was. It was like a constant cycle of hatred, of self-hatred, and you know guilt and all these terrible things.
Speaker 1And the drugs were like the breath, yeah, in between the just suffering.
Speaker 2And then now it's like I, you know, I'm, I'm human. So every once in a while I definitely get into that weird mindset where you beat yourself up, but then I quickly remember how counterproductive that those mindsets can be. It'll have you right back.
Speaker 1What are you doing?
Speaker 2Hmm.
Speaker 1How do you? What do you? Yeah, like it's a very interesting thing to think about Courtney calling, talking to herself in a very horrible way, taking the guilt of falling short of expectations or fucking up scenarios and instead of instead of metabolizing that and saying, yeah, there are ways that I could be more reliable for my loved ones, etc. And you know, it's not shame, I'm not a piece of shit, I just Like. My favorite, one of my favorite phrases in that domain is when I, when I know better, I do better like I didn't know better, so I, I can do better now because I know better. So don't beat myself up. But you didn't have those like healthy thought processes. So you were like a crew accruing more and more fuck ups in your life and had not yet rewritten the code of how to process when you fuck up, so it was just getting heavier and heavier and heavier.
Speaker 2Yeah, it was really awful. And then a couple years into recovery, I was gifted the secret, the book, the secret, okay, in four agreements, in the four agreements together, and then that set me down a rabbit hole about like how powerful your thoughts can be, and then I kind of got scared of self-depreting Thoughts. You know which was.
Speaker 2I was really grateful for because you know, I still really, really battled with that. I'm a big fan of personal development. I think that that's another thing that came from my drug addiction is. Now I'm on like a forever journey of self-improvement, whereas before I was like this is just who I am and this is just what it is, and that's it.
Speaker 1Like there was no hope. Could you saw where that got you yeah.
Speaker 2Basements of rock all over again. Yeah, I'm a huge fan of the reading and trying to continually Develop into somebody better.
Speaker 1You know, if you don't have the right, like life is, life is happening while it is happening, right in front of you, right into you. It's like life is happening always and the way that you interpret life is gonna Going to make it heavier than you could ever imagine, or it's gonna make it rich with meaning and purpose and in a way that feels aligned. And and it's really crazy how Important it is to evaluate the frameworks that you have in your mind, how you interpret things.
Speaker 2I think mindset is everything.
Speaker 1Yeah, I mean you think your brain, your brain is creating, like you know, when you take, when you, when you take a nap, when you sleep, when you sleep you dream, you know, and your brain, just like that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that that it just gives you just an experience and it's not based on any, any material, anything material. It's not like lights going into your eyes from bouncing off of things and it's, and you're interacting with Physical reality. You're just kind of like moving through narratives and subconscious concepts and stuff and your psychology, but, like in the waking state, there's the raw material of the events of life that's happening all the time, and then you're assigning meaning, yes, to it, and so, like you know, your, how you, your mindset is everything about.
Speaker 2I agree, I completely agree. Oh yeah, I think that mindset is the most powerful thing, the you should learn how to really control, because structuring things, restructuring things in in your brain, like I like to call it, retraining your brain. But I've been on like a constant journey instead of chasing the dragon, I'm chasing the retrain, you know, trying to Reposition all the things. That makes this life easier.
Speaker 1Yeah, yeah, that's some pretty cool stuff. It is some pretty cool stuff, I would say Is there anything else that comes to mind that I mean because you have such a wonderful, wonderful story and it's so inspirational and it's just inspired me as a just a follower and a viewer of your stuff For a while now, and so you know, is there anything else that maybe you'd like to share with our listener From your experience as far, or have we touched on most of the major points, for?
Speaker 2the touched on a lot. But I will say and I'm trying to be like super corny about it, but I think that, in my experience again, when you're stuck in the act of addiction spiral, it's so all or nothing, and I definitely learned that, taking One right step after the other, even if it's small steps, it actually matters, you know, and and I just kind of always felt like it was all or nothing and that a setback.
Speaker 2You know what's? What's that quote? A setback oh my god, I'm brain farting right now. A setback, oh my god, it's like my favorite quote. Oh my god, oh, a setback is just a setup for a comeback. I.
Speaker 2Wish that I would have really understood that like I could share the quote on you know Whatever. I could say it to people, but I didn't really like understand how important it is to like give yourself grace During like a hard and terrible journey out, but I mean it's worth it. It's worth it's. It's harder to stay on drugs than it's ever gonna be in recovery.
Speaker 1Yeah. It's harder you probably have to learn that for yourself. You got to get somewhere where you go. Okay, this is never gonna let up, ever. It never it only gives me a little and then takes everything else away. It gives me a little, takes everything else away again and again, and again. And when am I gonna just go? All right? Well, I played that game.
Speaker 2All right, well, play that game can't win it.
Speaker 1This, uh, for me something recently that's been really helpful has been beginning to Kind of like feel some humility in the face of my own addiction and say like, oh, I really can't negotiate with this anymore like that. I really can't Like admit I have to admit powerlessness to this thing. Has that been something that's been really helpful to you and in your journey.
Speaker 2Accountability with it has been huge and truthfully, I think without it I Don't know how long people stay in recovery without accountability, without kind of like Humility and like owning it under and like just accepting, like this is what's going on, this is who I am, this is what I'm facing. But if you don't do that, and it's still they did this to me, or this has happened to me, or those things happened. You're just never gonna outrun that nightmare mindset. You have to just accept it.
Speaker 1Yeah, I, I Can't. I remember I think it was dr Angie Huberman, was was talking about the behaviors that you exhibit when you're in addiction, and it was either Andrew Huberman or Anna Lemke, one of the two. I kind of been back and forth between them a lot so it kind of merges in my head as one person. But, um, your, your prefrontal cortex, which is operating the decision-making from a logical framework, reasoning framework, is not active in those compulsive driven activities and so like. If you put a, if you give, if you give like it's the age old experiment of the cocaine water to the rat man If you give a mouse access to cocaine from pressing a button, it will press the button until it dies, and every time, like without fail, every time.
Challenges of Living in Abundance
Speaker 1And which is really interesting too, what? That's what Anna Lemke talks about in her book dopamine nation. It's just essentially like our brains are not equipped for a world of abundance. We don't know how to stop. We've lived and survived because there hasn't been enough, and so we've always been on pursuit of finding more, and we have found the reached a Kuna Matata with endless food, endless internet, internet, endless entertainment, endless drugs, endless pornography, sex, and we legitimately do not have the ability for our brains. Our brains cannot Exist freely in a world of abundance and exercise control. It can't do it. It's never done it. This is brand new, so don't try.
Speaker 2Those, those books, for sure, because those sound like something.
Speaker 1Yeah, um, realized as I was saying that who said it to me and it was dr Daniel Lieberman. He writes a book called the molecule of more and I think you would freaking love that book. It's all it's. Dopamine is just saying dopamine is more, it's more and more. One equals two. It's always exponentially getting more, more, more, more, more, and it's a really cool behavior into just how we operate as humans. But he said that he was like you know, he says in children's books a lot of times there's, you know, a human that interacts with an animal and the animal represents essentially a part of ourself that is more instinctual, more primitive, and the human represents more of this Prefrontal cortex, neocortex, reasoning, logic, and there's this working balance between the two to be better. And it says you cannot, you can't, your brain is not equipped to be able to throttle its consumption and in abundance it just can't do it. So just quit fucking around, just stop man.
Speaker 2I'll be checking out those books for sure.
Speaker 1Yeah. So that's our message everybody listen to today Just stop. Just stop now, but wait, there's more. You can stop twice. You can stop today and tomorrow one day right. Yeah yeah, super cool, cool stuff. Courtney, you rock your rock star, your inspiration to me, and Keep living in Florida, keep standing in your and your mom group. Just keep living Recovery and being such an inspiration to so many people, including myself.
Speaker 2I appreciate you having me on here. I really do. I appreciate what you're doing for raising awareness for people.